Raising Stats in Modern ADOM

[pandacache]

Hey, all. I'm new to ADOM and have been having difficulty tracking down how exactly stats and stat potentials work in the current incarnation of ADOM. Everything published appears to be from previous versions of the game and has undergone dramatic changes since then. Having played through a good number of characters my current understanding is this:


Stat potentials are determined based on a character's starting class. This is heavily influenced by race and somewhat by class.
Stats cannot be raised past their potential through non-magical means.
Wishes and Potions of Boost Attributes can increase stat potentials.
Natural / Herb training cannot boost stats past their potentials.
Herbs cannot raise stats beyond ~25 regardless of whether or not the potential has been reached.
I am unsure if eating corpses will improve stat potentials or not. (Might depend on the corpse.)


In the past it seems abusing your stats and using herbs to boost your stats was commonplace, and everyone would end up with ~25 DEX / TO / WIL, but that is no longer the case. Herbs were originally capped at raising stats to 25 before they were made to respect stat potentials, but still seem to retain this cap even if you have yet to hit your potential. This leaves me wondering how high natural stat potentials are actually supposed to be reached.

I've been playing some Troll characters recently, and having ~30 starting Strength and Toughness and stat potentials of ~45 is great... but I can't seem to improve these scores at all. Even though there is enormous room for growth with a high potential, I'm confused as to how to actually increase these stats. Burdening doesn't train strength past 20 or so, and Morgia Root doesn't boost Toughness despite how many are chomped on. And even with nearly maxed out Athletics, I don't see any stat growth despite leveling up many, many times. At this point, it seems the only likely way of improving these stats towards reaching their potential is via Garth, but at such high levels, successful training would take millions of gold per point. Am I missing something? Or is there no real way of training these stats after they pass 25 but are below potential?

[JellySlayer]

There are very limited options for training of stats with very high potentials. Corpses of the right types will work sometimes (eg. giant corpses will continue to train St; swamp hydras will train To) and some boss corpses can give huge bonuses if you have room under your cap, but you're generally unlikely to get more than a handful of increases over the course of the game through these methods. The bulk of stat advancement to higher levels is done via potions.

[edit]You can also train any stat below potential with Garth in Dwarftown for mind-boggling sums of money.

[Blank4u47]

Ok, that's a big question, but I'll try my best. Potions of boost stat only give temporary bonuses that disappear. You need potential potions to increase potential. Blessed is best, it increases potential by 3.
With the exception of mana and str, having a starting potential higher than 26 is pointless.
Herbs can raise stat up to 26 with some luck and a ton of herbs at 24.
Dark orcs, Orc butchers, stone giant/lords, Titans, great red wyrms, and frost Giants/jarls can raise you potential if you are maxed. And also may raise your stat as high (or rarely higher than) 30.
Burden training can raise str up 20 if you have potential, but 19 and 20 require overburdening which decrease dx.
Ogres can increase str up to 18 if you have potential, but it's pretty easy to just carry more stuff (will temporary slow you down until you drop stuff)
Crystals of knowledge if blessed can raise Le up to 25 if you have potential, but they're rare.
Reading books trains Le
Blessed carrot juice increases Pe(up to 20) and in a room that smells like carrots will increase by 5 (regardless of current value)
Hill orcs and hydras will train Toughness, wraiths and specters will increase Toughness and maybe potential but it's chaotic.

I'm sure there's plenty more.

[Soirana]

Everything published appears to be from previous versions of the game and has undergone dramatic changes since then.


Stat potentials are determined based on a character's starting class. This is heavily influenced by race and somewhat by class.
Stats cannot be raised past their potential through non-magical means.
Wishes and Potions of Boost Attributes can increase stat potentials.
Natural / Herb training cannot boost stats past their potentials.
Herbs cannot raise stats beyond ~25 regardless of whether or not the potential has been reached.
I am unsure if eating corpses will improve stat potentials or not. (Might depend on the corpse.)



Wiki should be up to date on most topics (if its' not complain on talk page - I'll fix it)

Stat potential depends on race, class, char history - approximately in this order of importance
Things which work through potential are potions and some corpses (training (natural or Garth), herbs does not work, Athletics and training corpses I am not sure).
Potions of attribute (except carrot juice taking place of perception pot), potential attribute and potions of gain attributes. Personally I would not wish for any of these.
More or less right about herbs.
Most of toughness raising corpses work (there is base stat roll, so elf with To capped at 12
will nearly always get arise, while troll capped at 32 probably not going to get the raise). St increasing corpses are a mess -- I think corpses which formerly gave +1ST give raise to potential, and corpses which gave a chance of +1St are affected by potential (and I am not sure regular stone giants work anymore, and regular frost giants (including berserkers) most certainly don't).

[Blasphemous]

If you happen to carry around a LOT of potions, you can engage in chaos alchemy (assuming you have the moon sickle) on D1 and potentially get many potions of gain attributes.
In my best days, I could transform ~150 useless potions over and over again, until I ran out of potions, to get ~15 potions of gain attributes.
That's 10% of all potions turned into PoGA and with these raw numbers, it's a pretty decent result though somewhat boring/scummy/uncomfortable without macros.
Still, you need a large base supply of potions and then RNG can still screw you over.

[mjkittredge]

Oracle corpse from high mountain village can give you a good Learning increase, more if it's lower.

Ancient Dragons and Wyrms all have a different stat they will raise.

In addition to the undead another poster listed, Vampire corpses will also grant Toughness.

Claw bugs, Greater Claw Bugs, and Death Beatles will all increase your Dexterity at the cost of Willpower. Not sure what the threshold is, but as usual lower scores get guaranteed increases, and around 25 points it gets harder to raise it. I forget how that interacts with potentials.

But yeah it is much much harder to raise stats now than before. Power gamers were exploiting the hell out of it and trivializing the games content. Thing is by curbing that, it's made the game a lot more difficult for newer players.

[mjkittredge]

If you happen to carry around a LOT of potions, you can engage in chaos alchemy (assuming you have the moon sickle) on D1 and potentially get many potions of gain attributes.
In my best days, I could transform ~150 useless potions over and over again, until I ran out of potions, to get ~15 potions of gain attributes.
That's 10% of all potions turned into PoGA and with these raw numbers, it's a pretty decent result though somewhat boring/scummy/uncomfortable without macros.
Still, you need a large base supply of potions and then RNG can still screw you over.

And how many times did that blow up in your face, giving you several corruptions?

[Soirana]

And how many times did that blow up in your face, giving you several corruptions?

None? The whole idea is to convert all (or at lest low DL) pots to raw chaos. Since they are DL5 dipping at lower DL is safe.

[Blasphemous]

I think potions of raw chaos are DL8 or at least 6, while PoGA is DL1, water is DL4...
Thus dipping in sub DL6 areas is perfectly safe.
Still, dipping the sickle often "spills" some of the liquid, a ridiculous concept if you ask me, but it does happen.
It translates to roughly one corruption per 100 dips. Not much all things considered, especially with guaranteed scroll(s) of corruption removal.

[Soirana]

I think potions of raw chaos are DL8 or at least 6, while PoGA is DL1, water is DL4...
Thus dipping in sub DL6 areas is perfectly safe.
Still, dipping the sickle often "spills" some of the liquid, a ridiculous concept if you ask me, but it does happen.
It translates to roughly one corruption per 100 dips. Not much all things considered, especially with guaranteed scroll(s) of corruption removal.

water is DL2....